Fritz Pfeffer flees Germany for the Netherlands

Fritz Pfeffer was a dentist in Berlin. He was engaged to Charlotte Kaletta, who was a Roman Catholic. He could not marry her, because the German racial laws prohibited marriages between Jews and non-Jews.

In November 1938, Jews were assaulted and arrested throughout Germany during the so-called Kristallnacht. Synagogues were set on fire, and shops and other Jewish properties were destroyed. For Fritz, the time had come to leave Germany. On 1 December, he put his young son Werner on a ship to his brother in England. Fritz himself fled to the Netherlands. He was joined by Charlotte three weeks later.

The couple could not marry in the Netherlands either, because the Netherlands observed the German law in this respect because of an old treaty. Fritz wanted to marry in Belgium, but he could not go there because his passport had expired. Eventually, he hoped to go to Chile to work as a horse breeder, as he was a great lover of horses. These plans, too, failed due to the war.

In 1942, Fritz went into hiding in the Secret Annex, where he shared a room with Anne Frank.